


peripheral vision

by thnderchld



Series: the kids aren’t alright [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Let them be kids, M/M, Misgendering, Trans Male Character, just trying to become friends, the au where neil is nathan’s heir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 21:37:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thnderchld/pseuds/thnderchld
Summary: Neil gets a lesson in anatomy, and takes a step in a direction. Right or wrong is anyone’s guess.Trans Neil





	peripheral vision

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so I spit out 4 fan fictions out in a day but let me live.

It was a bit more shocking than it should have been, that Nathaniel felt lonely. The school year had ended and Nathaniel was now left once more to the chasm of his father’s home. It was a hodgepodge of luxury pulled in from all over the last two centuries, a few hints of his father’s Polish blood in tapestries. All the beautiful things in the world couldn’t make up for the dark hallways.

His father had called him, so Nathaniel knew what to expect. The room was the only thing lit, a room that sometimes operated as a ballroom. On the table lay a man who panted around the gag in his mouth. Nathan’s eyes met his son’s, the scalpel resting in his hand.

Each of the man’s limbs was tied to the table, completely naked. Nathaniel wasn’t exactly the squeamish sort.

“Cecilia,” Nathan said, and Nathaniel felt his stomach turn. It made no difference how masculine Nathaniel dressed, only that he was his father’s heir _ess_. “Come here.”

Nathaniel obeyed and walked over to the table.

Nathan started to talk. These were the only moments where the line between father and son wasn’t so tightly drawn. The moments that weren’t peppered by brutality and hatred. Nathaniel wondered if acceptance came from the fact that Nathan saw his own face in the child he called ‘daughter'.

But he was used to this. And so his mind wandered, even as he watched the scalpel glide over pale skin, even as the man’s genitals were sliced from his body and his muffled cries grew louder. His thoughts wandered back to that boy at school, that Andrew kid.

What an annoying little shit, asking all these questions about his life. He knew well enough how to lie, but what was he going to do if Andrew kept asking more of him, if-

Nathaniel tugged his sleeves down. He’d already told Andrew too much, that his mother was dead. A moment of anger toward Lydia Wesninski had paralysed him and he was left with this mistake.

Nathan kicked his heel and Nathaniel jolted back to reality. His face was stern, his eyes dark as the scalpel pressed into the man’s jaw. “You’ll pay attention if you want her _sacrifice_ to mean anything,” Nathan said, and Nathaniel felt that memory of bile and petrol rise in his head.

“I understand, father.”

“Then do this job.”

Nathaniel forced down his bile, all his wretchedness, and took the blade. He forced himself to picture his father’s face as he helped tear the man apart, piece by piece.

-

Andrew was waiting for him in detention, although he pretended not to be. The two of them stayed slightly separate, although Andrew’s face split with that obnoxious grin. But something was bothering him, Nathaniel realised.

He leaned down and crept to Nathaniel’s desk. His blonde hair made him look like a Russian poster child, with those hazel eyes. Nathaniel made sure there was nothing in his gaze.

“Nathaniel,” Andrew said, his eyes deep and bright and violent.

A door slammed and Nathaniel woke to the sound of his father in the kitchen. He checked the time, 4AM, and stood up. For the first time in a year he had dreamt, but not the kind of dream he wanted. He wanted his mother, wanted the stench of flame, the grind of his father’s truck as it hunted him down like a raven. Bright summer day, red gold beach. Black car, brown car, barrel of the gun against the chasm of his throat.

Instead he changed; hoisted up his bedroom window and crept out over the roof. He paused by the entrance of the house, where the wind threatened to send him plummeting to the ground below.

Finally he gripped a tree and descended to the gardens that spread out from his home.

Then he did what he did best.

Nathaniel Wesninski ran.

-

The city was like a map on the back of his hand. How many times had he followed these empty streets, how many times had he run to the song of his mother’s voice in his head? _Run, run, run_. It was a half-hearted dream, running- he knew that he would go back to his father after school, and Nathan knew it too.

But for now he pretended it was old times, with Mary at the wheel and the wind blasting through the open window. Pretended it was Oklahoma with the sun blazing against his skin, France with its blistering rain.

He pretended until he found himself at the school gates at least two hours early. Sweat against his neck, hands clenching the fabric of his shirt. The sun had just started to brave the horizon.

For some reason a noise drew his attention, and he turned his head to where that boy, Andrew stood. He was watching Nathaniel with this strange flat look in his eye. He wasn’t talkative today, and it rubbed Nathaniel the wrong way. There was no way to address it, however, so he just stared back.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Nathaniel nearly shivered at the dead tone in Andrew’s voice. He looked back to the school, and found that he wanted Andrew’s words and his questions.

Andrew started to turn away, but Nathaniel stepped after him. Barely under fourteen, and his eyes looked four years older. Nathaniel’s hands nearly reached for him, but there were steps they couldn’t take.

“Are you okay?” The words sounded strange and bastardised beneath his tongue. They both knew he was an idiot.

“That’s two questions,” Andrew tapped his own temple. “Stop wasting them on stupid things, before I ask you something dangerous.”

Nathaniel paused, looking up at Andrew. If anyone knew about danger, it was him. “Dangerous how?”

Andrew stepped closer, and Nathaniel met his stare dead-on. Despite the old questions, this was more emotion than he’d ever been given. Darkness, anger, the tightrope beneath his heals. Dark eyes. “You don’t seem to like saying shit.” He tilted his chin. “Why did you choose the name Nathaniel?”

The question sent a shockwave through Nathaniel’s body. There were so many answers, all of them fitting. _Maybe my father will love me if I carry his name. Maybe it was ironic, because I’m not very angelic at all._ He settled on a truth. “It’s what my mother called me.”

Andrew frowned, cast a glance to Nathaniel’s body. Ah, yes, he knew. They all knew. “I thought you were a transgender.”

“She was the only one who thought it was… okay… for me to be like this.”

A pause, and a flash of bitterness behind Andrew’s eyes. He turned away, and Nathaniel remembered that Andrew was a foster child. He had no mother to think he was okay as anything. “I’m so-”

“If you finish that word I’ll gut you.”

Nathaniel felt a flush of heat. He shoved his hands into his pockets and remembered the night before, the blood sliding slick beneath his pale fingers. There would be no gutting of him- although, a boy like Andrew seemed to contain more anger than perhaps even Nathanial could deal with.

-

Somehow, something changed. Nathaniel still complained, but he found himself sticking to Andrew’s side more often. Whether it be because they were both outcasts, or because Nathaniel’s loneliness had hit breaking point, he found himself at the peripheral of Andrew’s existence. They weren’t friends, and they hated each other, but Nathaniel found himself longing for Andrew’s company.

Their conversations weren’t deep, weren’t anything. The extent of it was that they constantly had each other in view, at the corner or the top.

When he came to school with bloodstained fingers, Andrew didn’t say anything.


End file.
